the boy's health news, jan '09 edition

i haven't updated on my boy's health in a while. it's a major saga, so i'll recap first.

• when he was 6 months old he stopped gaining weight. babies often slow down their growth around then, so we weren't panicked, but we were keeping an eye on him.

• at 1 year i had to go back to work so he went to daycare. he started getting sick at least once a week (colds, etc) and had major digestive issues.

• at 15 months i had to quit being the sole breadwinner to keep him home, since he still hadn't gained any weight and looked like a skeleton.

• a month later i tried eliminating gluten from his diet and within a week he was digesting food properly, his bloated belly had flattened out, and he was much happier. he gradually started gaining weight.

• all through this time we were seeing doctors and trying to get some help for him, but hitting dead ends. when i cut gluten from his diet the doctor accused me of dietary neglect. i got a dietitian to sign something saying that his diet was fine to keep the doctor from reporting me to the child welfare people, then quit taking him to the doctor for a while.

• since then he's gradually put on weight and grown. when he's exposed to even trace amounts of gluten, even if he inhales it, he gets really sick for three days. he also seems to have a compromised immune system. he picks up every stray bug that comes his way. i've found that if i keep him at home he gets sick much less often, so we stay home pretty constantly. it isn't fun or exciting, but i can't handle the excitement of him being sick all the time. we've also gotten a new, better doctor, and started seeing specialists. he's had a zillion examinations and tests and no one has any idea what's wrong with him. they've ruled out several things, including celiac disease. we're still pursuing a diagnosis, but we're encountering mostly indifference from the medical community, so it's frustrating. i don't know if they don't believe me or think i'm exaggerating or what, but they don't seem to be that serious about figuring out what's wrong with my boy.

the update:

in december he got a bad cold and a cold sore, which developed into open, festering sores all over his lips, the inside of his mouth, and down his throat.

here he is on christmas eve, when he was starting to get better.

he literally didn't eat anything for a week, and he lost a lot of weight. he didn't have any weight to spare to begin with, and now he looks like one of the kids from world vision infomercials, minus the flies. and his body has been acting like it has gluten poisoning for the past two weeks, but with no apparent triggers. and he's suddenly not toilet trained at night any more, plus he's having bladder control issues during the day. something is wrong.
i don't want to take him to the doctor's, he gets sick every time we go there. but he's sick, anyways... i don't feel like asking the doctor, again, to help us figure this out is particularly productive. i'm just not sure what else to do, and doing nothing is obviously not helping him. it's really discouraging.

after all his weight loss i've been fanatical about stuffing him with as many calories as i can, most of them fats. he's been eating a delightful mixture of applesauce and lard. think creamy, faintly bacon-y applesauce. yum. lucky for me he has no idea that most people don't eat this crap, so he chows down obligingly.

anyone have any brilliant ideas?

a recipe from above.

i have a friend. she doesn't know about this blog so i can't use any identifying details, but lets just say that she's pure of heart and righteous of spirit. she was chosen as a sacred vessel... maybe i should tell this story.

so my friend was doing something sacred and chaste like singing hymns or doing laundry or facebooking or something, when an angel of the lord appeared to her.


'be not afraid!' the angel thundered reassuringly. 'you have been chosen by the mightiest of deities to deliver his/her manhattan chowder recipe to the people of the world!'

then a glowing scrap of paper appeared in her hands. my friend's holy eyes scanned the paper and said 'oh, cool, i have all the ingredients.... um, except the clams. i'll get some when i pick the kids up from school. thanks!' but when she looked back up the angel was gone, and when she looked back down the paper had stopped glowing and she noticed that it was part of the envelope from an unsolicited credit card offer that had come in the mail the day before. the supreme deity reuses before recycling, my friend mused.

that night she made the soup. it was quick and easy and tasted good. the next day she heated up some of the leftovers, and it was freaking awesome. she tried it cold, and it was perfectly edible. 'so,' she thought to herself, 'this is a soup that tastes better the next day.'

my friend smiled to herself.

in the coming weeks my friend made the soup often, and it was always well recieved, even by her son, who is an insanely picky eater. (i've babysat him, and the kid likes cooked spaghetti noodles with a little parmesan cheese on them as a meal. nothing else.)

the holidays came and my friend and her family were planning to travel to visit family. my friend emptied her fridge of perishables (sushi! milk! lettuce!) and brought them to my house, since we were in the middle of our month-long illness. included in the bounty was a sour cream container with leftover manhattan clam chowder.

that night, in between the boy crying himself to sleep and the baby waking up covered in puke, i sat down with the container of soup, cold. i couldn't risk the microwave waking up the little sickos, but i hadn't eaten anything all day, since it had been a hellish nonstop sickfest. and the glory of the soup was revealed unto me. and deliciousness and wholesome fillingness shone around.

i bribed another friend to finangle the recipe for me, and made it last night. here it is.

chop and fry in a bit of oil:

• a medium onion
• 1 cup of chopped celery
• a clove or two of garlic
  

when onion translucent, add:

• a potato or three, cubed
• 2 cups of boiling water or stock

simmer for ~15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
then add:

• 1-2 cups of chopped up tomatoes and liquid
• 1 can of clams with liquid
• 1t thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

simmer another 10 minutes.

we love seafood 'round these parts, so i used two cans of clams and their juice, minus the several that i ate straight out of the can while making it. you can never have enough clams. that's my motto. i also used a whole huge jar of tomatoes. and an extra potato. so i guess i doubled the recipe or something. that's fine, double the sanctity! more food from less cooking!

so cook it! enjoy it! and when you copy it out into your recipe box, title it 'divine manhattan clam chowder sent from above', ok?

breakable

this evening my partner started to read to me the article associated with wikipedia's picture of the day. some bug that lays its eggs strategically so that the newborn larvae can devour... i made him stop. it was making me really sad.

bug cruelty, sad books left unfinished, crying at songs and pictures and thoughts... what's going on with me? i'm not pregnant and i don't have pms. but i have been keeping up with the news coming from the middle east. it's affecting me deeply. physically. i'm a mess, emotionally. i'm not sleeping well, and it isn't just the baby's fault. my shoulder muscles are rock-hard and in pain. and i feel horribly guilty for complaining about these things; the people in gaza are dying.

white phosphorus, depleted uranium, cluster bombs. after years of systematic deprivation and degradation, interspersed with air attacks, israel is invading gaza on foot. hospitals, universities, and homes are becoming mass graves. i don't care if you support hamas or not, this isn't even remotely any way to treat a population.

the western world owes the jewish people a debt of guilt for their silence and complicity in the holocaust. we also owe such a debt to homosexuals, gypsies, people of colour, pacifists and the handicapped, and i don't see that being paid, but i digress. silence and inaction were, effectively, permission for millions of people to be rounded up and slaughtered. it was a wrong of inexpressable depth. but does this mean that the world needs to stand aside and allow aparthied, collective punishment and genocide to take place, as a way of making amends? i understand that north america's 'special relationship' with israel is about more than just the holocaust, but that's the seed from which it grew, from the little that i understand. but no matter what, nothing justifies our inaction. innocent people are being slaughtered while the western world sits on its hands. as usual.

i desperately wrack my brain for something, anything i can do. my mp is tired of hearing from me. everyone i know has been made aware. a protest has been attended. the situation goes around and around in my anxiety-ridden brain. i check the news obsessively. it all means nothing; i am powerless in the face of such a huge evil. it's fucking depressing.


for those who really want to know, read here and here.

a lazy sunday: book review, recipe & photos

yesterday it was -40 and my partner was stuck at work, thanks to car trouble. so from the time we woke up until bedtime, the boys and i were on our own, housebound. plus the internet was down.
it was cold. hell-ass cold.


and, as we all know, the best thing to do when it's cold is make some delicious from-scratch chili that simmers its way to perfection over the course of the day. mine was made with garden black beans, farmers market veggies and lots of love.

we filled our day. there were stories read, naps taken, snacks munched, tickles,


songs hummed, (ani's present/infant, from her new album) (<-- track 3) blocks stacked, star wars watched ( the return of the jedi. yoda, jabba, darth vader and ewoks all in the same movie? plus a space battle? my kids think they've died and gone to heaven) and coffee sipped thoughtfully. i also made farmers market/ garden salsa. here's how.

• in the summer i gathered cilantro, onions, garlic, lemon juice, salt and hot peppers and threw them all in the blender. when the mixture was liquefied and burned my sinuses if i inhaled too close to it, i divided it up into baggies and froze them.
• i also processed a mountain of fresh corn and tomatoes and green peppers.
• yesterday i thawed a baggie of the salsa base, plus tomatoes and corn and green peppers. if i could have left the house i would have gotten avocado.
• i chopped the green peppers and tomatoes and mixed them into the base with the corn. then i pulled out the tortilla chips. i also mixed in some blue cheese, but many people would find that gross. many people are wrong.

i've been reading a cure for grief by nellie hermann. i'm not sure if i'll finish it. it's a good book - the author is clearly well educated and an adept writer. the pace is good, the prose is sparse and direct, the characters are relatable... but i feel like a peeping tom. the book is obvoiusly a thinly veiled autobiography. (the author's biography and the book match nearly perfectly.)

a cure for grief is 272 pages of pain. the protagonist lives through tradgedy after tradgedy, and every moment of her agony is expressed on the pages. it's not melodramatic or cheesy, at all. heartwrenching is more the word. and intensely personal. i feel guilty about reading something so private. hermann is a master of the english language andhas phenomenal skill as a writer, but this book is too visceral and too real to be read as entertainment.


of course, i can't read and drink coffee (and red wine mixed with cranberry juice) without knitting. my first project of 2009 was chosen to test my knitterly skills. i'm making hedera, from knitty. i'm over the moon that they're turning out. keeping track of a 4-row lace pattern when the little dudes are calling my attention away from the needles every few seconds is a real feat, i believe. on top of the complex stitch pattern, i though i'd try knitting these socks two at a time, toe-up. that's working out so far, too. and after so long using yarns i didn't like, dream in color's smooshy is pure bliss. the yarn is sproingy and soft and knits up quickly into a dense, smooth fabric with a subtle sheen. i'm not crazy about the colour, but the yarn itself is fantastic.
i haven't decided yet who i am making these for. on the one hand, i would love to show them off to everyone i see the way i've bragged on them here. then again, i don't have any nice shoes that would showcase them and so i'd have to pull off my boots or runners every time i wanted people to see them, and people might view me askance if i started pulling off my footwear on the bus and in the library and post office and grocery store. plus i'm not crazy about the colour. i don't have to decide just yet, i have a few more hours' work until i'm at the point where i decide what size they will be. you have until then to state your case in the comments.

2008: a retrospective

thinking back, it's hard to remember what i did this year. nothing, mostly. a lot of sitting around. i'm usually too tired to feel capable of anything, so i sit in this chair and read blogs and webcomics and message boards. it's not a good use of my time, but what else can i do? i end up frustrated and angry when i try to challenge myself when i've had very little sleep. so a lot of this year was pissed away. that sucks, but it's not something that i have a lot of control over.

a year or maybe a bit more ago i realized that this whole stay-at-home gig wasn't about to end anytime soon and bitching about it was only making me depressed. in 2008 i tried to make the best of it and be the best goddamn housewife the world has ever seen. i knit, cooked, canned, butchered, gardened, wiped asses, read stories, came up with activities, cleaned... you name it, i tried my hand at it in 2008. i learned a few things about myself in the process.

i hate doing childcare. hate it. my kids are great in small doses, i can read to them and tickle them and wipe their tears... but all day, every day, and every night? fuck, no. keeping them fed and clean(ish) and entertained and mediating their conflicts wears away at me and pisses me off. i spend a lot of time just wanting them to go away. unfortunately, childcare is my primary activity. fuck. all i can really do about this is wait as patiently as i can for them to get old enough to start school and, hopefully, one day start sleeping through the night. i hate that i have this attitude because one day they won't be so small and cute and they won't want to snuggle with me. i don't want to waste these years with my impatience and irritability. i don't want them to remember me as the mama who just wanted them to go away. so i really do try hard to be a good, attentive mother. but as i read them the same stupid book for the ten millionth time, i keep an eye on the clock.

cooking, cleaning and laundry i can handle. they're mindless activities that need doing. cleaning is a pretty quick way to get satisfying results. cooking can be fun, if no one is pulling at my legs. laundry... whatever. it's fast and i like clean undies. i can't stand cleaning the kitchen, so it stays dirty. problem solved!

gardening, canning and knitting make me happy. i love making things, especially useful things. these aren't often considered to be serious art forms, but they're the closest i get these days. i don't miss painting and doing metalwork when i'm gardening. canning is a little more tedious, but the resulting rows of jars fill me with as much pride as any ring or painting ever did. knitting is sort of a mix - i liken it to making jewelry. the conception and planning of a project is where the creativity is - choosing materials and a pattern or design. then comes the drudgery, where i use the skills i have and acquire whatever new ones i need to create the object. the finishing touches and cleanup always make me feel glow-y. unless the project didn't work out the way i wanted, and then i walk around muttering curses for a while, then start over.


metalwork is more prone to creating income, but it takes lengthy, formal training and a lot of expensive equipment. knitting is less impressive to an outsider, but it's a more affordable art, and one that i can practice while my kids play. and it doesn't cause serious health problems in fetuses. one day i hope to get back into jewellerymaking, but until then knitting is an acceptable substitute.

four book reviews for the price of one

the library hasn't seen my face in weeks. in fact, the only outings i've gone on in the past few weeks are to the grocery store and to the drug store. food and cold meds, that's all my house needs these days. books can wait. *sigh*

but my compulsion to read hasn't disappeared just because my source of reading material is temporarily out of reach. so i've made do. and between the internet and the shelves of books i've picked up at thrift stores and never actually read, i'm doing ok, i guess. i'm writing this so i must not have become illiterate during my holiday from new, interesting books.

books reviews 1, 2 and 3: the twilight series by stephenie meyer
my friends were raving about them so i gave them a shot. i thought they might be like the harry potter books, which i think mostly lived up to the hype. i don't feel like these books did. they just didn't grab me. i think a 15 year old version of myself would have been spellbound by them, (and not allowed to read them) but it just didn't feel like the books reached across the aisle to the adult audience the way rowling's books did. they were enjoyable, but not particularly gripping or memorable. obvoiusly many readers feel differently from the way i do, but that's cool. i can live with that. too bad those other readers are wrong.

book 4: i am not spock by leonard nimoy
i got it in a thrift store for a dime and gave it to my partner for xmas. leonard nimoy's autobiography - what's not to love?
a fair amount, actually. this isn't a book that will be showing up in literature anthologies, hundreds of years from now. but, to be fair, for a celebrity author he's not bad. granted, i'm comparing him to pamela anderson, but still.
i think trekkies probably love this book and people who have a good grasp of sci-fi tv culture would enjoy it, but i've only seen an episode or two of star trek and only have the vaguest grasp of the whole thing. so when nimoy started talking about some klingon death pinch, i got confused, which led to boredom, which led to me putting the book down and going to bed early.
meh, it'll get a chuckle out of the people who are browsing the livingroom bookshelf.

a whiny list

6 - six days of constant crying from the boy. he's in agony. all i can do is give him nyquil and hope he cries himself to sleep. and by 'constant crying' i mean constant crying. he only stops to sleep. and he often screams in his sleep. all day, every day, he ranges between a droning cry and piercing shrieks of pain. to say my nerves are shattered is a vast understatement. oh, and his face smells strongly of rotting meat. yum.

5 - the number of firemen that came over yesterday. not for tea and crumpets. our house filled scarily with smoke and we called 911. the firemen came and hunted all over the house for the source, then figured it must have been a dust bunny that got into the furnace, and left. not coincidentally, i didn't sleep well last night. and not just because my kids were up and down like screaming, crying yoyos all night.

4 - four projects i've made with my dishcloth cotton. these socks,


a pair of baby legwarmers, and two dishcloths. actually, the legwarmers are 3/4 done. i am so sick of this yarn. sure, it's washable, hypoallergenic, cheap, and soft, but it's also deadly boring, a pain to knit with, and makes this squeaky feeling with the needles. i am craving some other yarn - any other yarn. i'm rushing through the last of that last legwarmer so i can make a hat or a slipper. i have one slipper, and i'd like another. my left foot gets jealous of its counterpart. but my toque is boring and navy blue, i'd rather look a little more stylin' when i shovel the mountains of snow that build up, making the front gate unopenable.

3 - the boy has lost at least three pounds in the past week, thanks to his inability to eat. it has taken him a couple of years to get to the point where he doesn't feel like a skeleton with some skin, but he's back to that point. he literally looks like the famine victim kids you see on infomercials for world vision. send this kid some body fat, somebody, please.

2 - two days that the baby has been healthy for. prior to that he was scarily feverish, couldn't breathe, and was performing nonstop crying duets with his brother. also he puked like some sort of crazy puking machine. i'm glad that machine hasn't been invented. my parner would probably get it for me as an ill-advised joke. the baby is still a fountain of snot, but i can handle that.

1 - one day left until we celebrate the holidays. my partner is working over the actual holidays, so we've fooled the gullible minions into thinking that santa is coming tonight. we've cut out most of our plans so that we don't rush the sick, miserable boy around trying to cram in all the christmas cheer. presents and food and hopefully naps. oh, and a bottle of wine. and some rum. sounds good to me.

dec 19th, late at night

my partner just got caught up on my blog while i sat nearby, knitting a sock for my boy. i like being around when he reads it so i can hear what parts he chuckles at and see what parts his face gets a little stony at. here's what i learned:

• he skips recipe posts
• he skims the book reviews, looking for anything that we haven't already discussed. i'm a communicator, so my written reviews have not yet sparked any further literary conversations.
• he isn't excited about being depicted to the blogosphere as a roller skater. he didn't say what he'd prefer, but i suspect that he'd rather i tell you that he has amazing ninja skills that he hones upstairs. or he's built a ramp and is becoming a pro skateboarder. or that he's taken up the electric guitar and is putting jimi hendrix to shame. whatever, dude. in my eyes you will always be a rollerskater. more specifically, this roller skater:

but maybe a little more like this:

i'll get to it eventually

i had intended to write a review for miriam toews' the flying troutmans, but there has been a change of plans. my baby is sick. i've put down my book and my knitting and curled around his little body, feeling the heat radiate off him and hearing his laboured breathing and terrible cough. he has thrown up on me six times in the last 24 hours, and i'm sure he's not done. he has a droning cry that goes on and on, he's limp and he freaks out if i so much as shift in my seat. it's time to just sit and wait. and so i sit and wait.

today has brought some wonderful things. my friends are amazing; i will never feel alone with them posting photoshopped boob shots of themselves and insulting my mom. my partner has brought me indian food, chocolate croissants, mandarin oranges, very strong coffee, towels and change after change of clothes.

the thing that i contemplate the most as i spend hour after hour with the little guy is how wonderful this is. when my older son was this age he got sick every single week. he weighed nothing. i was almost fired because we constantly had to stay home from daycare because of his sicknesses. my baby, on the other hand, has no chronic medical issues. he has had colds a handful of times in his year and a half. he is a hefty little person. he(normally) laughs and dances and tries to keep up with his brother. a few days of congested misery i can handle.

i'll get you that review sooner or later.

book review: the 351 books of irma arcuri

the 351 books of irma arcuri by david bajo

math, literature and sex dovetailed in a tight, complex narrative. the rare kind of book where if the reader zones out for a few minutes she needs to go back and re-read what she missed. not (always) because it makes gaps in the plot, but because otherwise she will miss out.

the writer obviously thinks, obviously reads, and obviously fucks. there is not a word of falsehood in this book - everything it contains has been felt and seen and experienced, and can be again.

it is my hope that this book is considered literature by the finest sort of readers, a century or two from now.